Photo: Supplied.
BY JAN NARY
Machines have had a huge impact on civilisation. Some of those machines will have pride of place at the Redland Coast Museum’s Mighty Machines Day on Redlands’ Ekka Holiday in a display that features vintage cars, tractors, windmills, a steam engine, a printing press and a motorail carriage.
Special guest displays will include modern and heritage waste management vehicles from JJ Richards, quarry trucks from Karreman Quarries, vintage cars from the Bayside Vehicle Restorers Club, a Barnes Auto tow truck and two fire trucks from the Queensland Fire Department.
Visitors will also have the opportunity to experience a flight simulator operated by the No. 23 (City of Brisbane) Squadron RAAF Association, offering a hands-on aviation experience for aspiring pilots and aviation enthusiasts alike.
The 1864 Albion printing press, a donation from the Queensland Museum, is under the care of restorer Ralph Gofton.
“It doesn’t require much maintenance; it’s a robust machine, and its ornamentation indicates how much pride went into its manufacture,” Ralph says. “It works on the same principle as Gutenberg’s original printing press, where individual pieces of type were set into a frame and coated with ink and a sheet of paper was pressed evenly over the blocks by what’s basically a wine-press mechanism.”
Gutenberg’s invention marked the leap from laborious quill-pen copying done in religious chapels by priests to mass production of printed material. Interestingly, the printers’ union delegate in a workplace is still called “the chapel father”.
Ian Munday loves steam. He did his naval training on steamships and is the only museum volunteer with a steam operator’s ticket. Twenty years ago, he joined the Redlands Coast Museum to take care of the museum’s 1900 Garrett portable steam engine.
“It’s a power source for other machines,” he explains.
“It doesn’t run on rails; it has to be towed by a heavy horse team to where it’s needed, then the belt around its drive wheel can be connected to a water pump, a saw mill, a threshing machine – even a shearing shed.
“It came from a Roma property and needed to be re-tubed and restored. Usually, they run on steam from boiling water, but for museum demonstrations, we hook it up to an air compressor and run it on air. Steam is wonderful, but it can be dangerous.”
Mighty Machines will be on display on August 10 from 10:00am to 1:00pm at Redlands Coast Museum.
